We heard about it, we tried it - here details our adventures in:
Babywise
by Gary Ezzo
Outcome: Success! Slept through the night on his own consistently by 10.5 weeks
While pregnant, Daniel and I asked around what kind of parenting materials people recommended. By far, the most recommended material by both Christians and non-Christians was Babywise (or Prep for Parenting/Growing Kids God's Way--all the same, I think) by Gary Ezzo.
We read the book (most of it haha), picked out the stuff that worked for us, and left the stuff that didn't. Here are the basics of what really worked for us:
1. FEED/WAKE/SLEEP cycle
BASICS: When establishing baby's routine, try hard to make sure it's a FEED/WAKE/SLEEP cycle, and not feed/sleep/wake. It's soooo very tempting to nurse baby to sleep, but it will very, very quickly become a sleep prop for baby. (And I knew I didn't want to have to be stuck doing that whenever I wanted Connor to go back to sleep--pacifier for the win!)WHAT WE DO: Ideally, when he wakes up I feed him right away, then he has his wake time, then he will usually fall asleep, (though not always). Once he wakes up from his nap (or after about 3 hrs since last feeding) I'll feed him again, and on we go. (1st weeks were the hardest cause Connor was soooo sleepy and sometimes it was nearly impossible to roust him to finish a feeding. Oh well, it worked the majority of the time.)
2. Feeding Schedule every 2.5-3.5 hrs
BASICS: The idea is to not feed him every time he cries, but to help baby develop their own hunger mechanism so their little bodies know when it's food time vs. sleepy time. Feed them if they're hungry, but also encourage them to be on a routine...called "Parent-Directed Feeding" (PDF).WHAT WE DO: We are not rigid on this, sometimes I'll feed him 2.5 hrs later, then i might feed him 3.5 hrs later...we just try to keep it in the general range. This was difficult intermittently for us (especially during growth spurts) because he can get hungry after just 2 hrs, and sometimes now that he's older he stretches it to 4 or 4.5 hours if he's having a long nap. We feed him when he's hungry. Now (written at 4 mos old) he decides when he's hungry and tired, but it's always within that range because we helped him develop that hunger mechanism from the beginning by not feeding him every time he cries.
WHAT DID NOT WORK:
Scheduling specific times to eat.
The book says to be sure you make a time every morning to be the first feeding of the day, whether it be 5am, 630am, 730am, etc...same every morning. I stressed at first because this was nearly impossible for us based on his varied wake times. Now I have accepted it's impossible for us and don't care anymore. I feed him when he wakes up and then go from there. On days when we have to be somewhere at a specific time (Sundays -- church) I'll get him up at 630am if he's not up already and feed him so that i can feed him at 9am right before we leave for church.Nap Times - Crying it out
The book says to put baby down for naps in between each feeding while they're still awake so they learn to put themselves to sleep. Well, Connor isn't aways tired enough to take a nap between each feeding, so I'm not going to put him in his crib and listen to him cry when I know he's not tired. We go off his cues of tiredness and when he's getting crabby I know it's time for him to sleep. Usually, thanks to my parents living with us, he's rocked to sleep either in the swing or in the bouncy seat or in someone's arms, then laid in the crib. We have let him cry it out a few times when he is just inconsolable and obviously tired. If he's going to scream in my ear anyway, he may as well just lay in his crib and scream until he falls asleep! But that doesn't happen too often thankfully. (BedTime note: Connor somehow knows the difference between bedtime and naptime...he almost never protests to bedtime and we lay him in his crib awake every night...)OUTCOME: Success!!! Mostly...
Connor slept through the night for the FIRST time when he was 9.5 weeks old on a weekend trip in a hotel. Yep, 9.5 weeks, 8 hours of sleep. I did not count that as his "beginning" to sleep thru the night because when we got home he we back to waking up around 1am or 3am to eat. But what this trip revealed was that it was possible for him to sleep through the night.So, I began offering him his pacifier mid-night instead of a feeding and was SO SURPRISED when he fell right asleep with the binky!! Whatt?? A few nights of this and he stopped waking up mid-night altogether (just like the book says)! At 7 months now (yes it took me 3 months to finish this post) he has sorta consistently slept through the night, though he does still feel the need to cry whenever he wakes up at night. Sometimes he gets so upset i feed him just to calm him down. For the most part though, we get through the night with 1-3 wakeups just requiring a binky. It's a wonderful treat to have a 0-wakeups night.
Though Connor's sleep habits are not Babywise picture perfect, I am so thankful that God has blessed us with a baby who was pretty easy to train and caught on to it quickly!
Side note: Babywise is controversial for various reasons. Look it up if you're curious, but just remember to use common sense and only do what you're comfortable doing. Take what you like, leave what you don't.
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